From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games

Technology in Wartime - updated CFP

Just FYI -- here's the updated CFP from Technology in Wartime:

   

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Sponsored by: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
Date: January 26, 2008
Location: Stanford University

CPSR seeks proposals for a winter 2008 conference called Technology in Wartime. This conference will explore how computer technology is used during war -- both for the purposes of combat/defense, as well as for human rights interventions into war-torn regions. Topics will range from high tech weapons systems and internet surveillance, to privacy-enhancing technologies that aid human rights workers documenting conditions in war-torn countries and help soldiers communicate their experiences in blogs and e-mail. We are also interested in the history of computer-aided weapons systems. Our goal will be to consider the ethical implications of wartime technologies and how these technologies are likely to affect civilization in years to come. Ultimately we want to engage a pressing question of our time: What should socially-responsible computer professionals do in a time of high tech warfare?

We welcome proposals from technology experts, military professionals, policy-makers, scholars, and human rights workers on the issues outlined above. Possible topics include: weaponizing computer technologies; robotics; UAVs; sensor networks; internet surveillance; human rights technologies; datamining; biometric software; CCTV; surveillance camera networks; cyberterrorism; privacy-enhancing technologies for dissidents, human rights workers and journalists in wartime; the history of computer-aided warfare; high tech antiwar protests; geolocation and GPS; smart armor; blogs/podcasts in war zones; embedded bloggers; and life-saving technologies for soldiers. We are interested in factual reports on these issues as well as social commentary.

The proceedings will be broadcast live on the Web, and the presentations collected in book form online, released under a CC license, and made available to the public and policy makers looking for expert opinions on wartime technology issues during the election year.

Technology in Wartime will not be pro-war or anti-war, right-wing or left-wing -- it will deal with the facts of wartime technologies, and consider ethical effects from many perspectives.

About submitting a proposal:
Proposals are welcome in the form of paper presentations, descriptions of current research projects, and panels. Technical demonstrations are also a possibility. All participants (including panelists) are expected to produce a ready-for-publication article to be published in the proceedings. Reasonable travel expenses (coach airfare to conference location plus two nights hotel) will be reimbursed. If you are submitting a proposal for a panel, be sure to include information about each of the proposed speakers and topics. Please submit a one-page abstract of your proposal, a short biography, and cover letter by Oct. 15, 2007 to [email protected]. We will notify speakers by Nov. 1.

About CPSR (cpsr.org):
Since incorporating in 1983, CPSR has been at the forefront of discussions about the ethical uses of computer technology. CPSR educates policymakers and the public on a wide range of issues, and has incubated numerous projects such as Privaterra, the Public Sphere Project, EPIC (the Electronic Privacy Information Center), the 21st Century Project, the Civil Society Project, and the CFP (Computers, Freedom & Privacy) Conference. Originally founded by U.S. computer scientists, CPSR now has members in 26 countries on six continents.

 

Link: Technology in Wartime Conference | Technology in Wartime.

"Technology in Wartime" conference

 

Via Annalee Newitz's blog, a call for participation for the "Technology in Wartime" conference at Stanford this January, sponsored by CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility):

CPSR seeks proposals for a winter 2008 conference called Technology in Wartime. This conference will explore how computer technology is used during wartime. Topics will range from high tech weapons systems and internet surveillance, to privacy-enhancing technologies that aid human rights workers documenting conditions in war-torn countries and help soldiers communicate their experiences in blogs and e-mail. We are also interested in the history of computer-aided weapons systems. Our goal will be to consider the ethical implications of wartime technologies and how these technologies are likely to affect civilization in years to come. Ultimately we want to engage a pressing question of our time: What should socially-responsible computer professionals do in a time of high tech warfare?

We welcome proposals from technology experts, policy-makers, scholars, and human rights workers on the issues outlined above. Possible topics include: weaponizing computer technologies; robotics; UAVs; sensor networks; internet surveillance; human rights technologies; datamining; biometric software; CCTV; surveillance camera networks; cyberterrorism; privacy-enhancing technologies for dissidents, human rights workers and journalists in wartime; the history of computer-aided warfare; high tech antiwar protests; geolocation and GPS; smart armor; blogs/podcasts in war zones; embedded bloggers; and life-saving technologies for soldiers. We are interested in factual reports on these issues as well as social commentary. [...]

Link: Techsploitation » Blog Archive » Participate in “Technology in Wartime” conference this January.

{pic source!}

exploding cardboard evitable

Went to Houston a few weeks ago to give a talk at Domy Books, and a nice feller there named Nick Meriwether made this amazing hand-painted sign for the occasion. I traded a copy of the book for it.

"Games Simulation and Conflict" at Bard College this Weekend

For those of you near Bard College, please come by this weekend for our mini conference Games Simulation and Conflict, part of the College's Tech/Action series, presented by The Human Rights Project the dept of Film and Electronic Arts, and the Science Technology and Society program.

All events are free and open to the public.

 

Friday includes an enactment of Buckminster Fuller's World Game, a screening of the documentary 8 Bit, and musical performance by gameboy maestro Bitshifter.

On Saturday, talks and presentations by Eddo Stern (Darkgame, Waco Ressurrection), McKenzie Wark (author of the recent Gamer Theory) and Alexander Galloway (Gaming, RSG), Bard students (and real world bloggers!) Bonnie Ruberg and Scott Jon Siegel, as well as yours truly. Plus: Whiffle Hurling! See links below for info on speakers.

Link: hrp | events.

Friday, May 18th 11 A.M.

Introduction, "Games, Conflict, and the World Game," Greg Moynahan (MPR)

Morning: Non Zero Sum Games

11:00 A.M. - ~2 P.M. Buckminster Fuller's  World Game (MPR)

Afternoon: Zero-Sum Games

3:00 P.M. Capture the Flag and Others (CAMPUS CENTER)

4:30 P.M. The Bard Debate Team: Debate as Conflict and Game (MPR)

Evening: 8-Bit Music in Film

8 P.M. Film 8-Bit (MPR) w/filmmaker Marcin Ramocki and performances by Bitshifter and Greg Fox.

Saturday, May 19th

Talks and Presenations 10:30-5:45 P.M. (AVERY FILM CENTER)

10:30-11:15 Gautam Sethi

11:15-12:00 Kathleen Ruiz

12:05-12:50 McKenzie Wark

12:50-1:35 Eddo Stern

2:30-2:50 Bonnie Ruberg

2:50-3:35 Ed Halter

3:35-4:05 Scott Siegel

4:15-5:00 Alexander Galloway

Then later, a few rounds of Whiffle Hurling (no joke!) with Tom Russotti.

Houston Do You Read Me?

Hey Texans...I'm heading back to your fair Republic to give a talk at Domy Bookstore, organized by the amazing Aurora Picture Show in Houston. It's this Thursday, and its free and open to the public. Come on by!

UPDATE: check out pre-event coverage from the Houston Press.

Gamer Theory event in NYC

Hey book readers: release events this week for the new treeware edition of Mackenzie Wark's GAM3R 7H30RY, now called Gamer Theory. See below! It's in Manhattan this coming wednesday in a building what that I assume is part of the agglutinative New School complex.

what: McKenzie Wark will present, and lead a discussion of his new book Gamer Theory (Harvard University Press). Jaeho Kang (Sociology, The New School for Social Reseach) will act as the respondent.

where: Wolff Conference Room, 2nd floor, 65 5th avenue (between 14th and 13th streets)

when: 6-8PM, Wednesday 18th April 2007

then: drinks & games at Barcade, 388 Union Ave Williamsburg (L train to Lorrimer st, take Union exit)

***

Gamer Theory (Harvard University Press)

Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win? Welcome to gamespace. Gamespace is where and how we live today. It is everywhere and nowhere: the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town. In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field--where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.

Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer. As all previous such personae had their breviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character. Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one's score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.

McKenzie Wark
Teach culture & media at Eugene Lang College and sociology at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of about seven books, most recently A Hacker Manifesto, also published by Harvard University Press.

Jaeho Kang
Before coming to The New School, he was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow in the Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt, Germany. He has a book in progress, Media Critique: Walter Benjamin and the Spectacle of Modernity, and has published articles on the social theories of Benjamin, Marcuse, Foucault, and Habermas.

Presented by the department of Sociology, The New School for Social Research.

Talk at RPI

For those of you in upstate New York, I'll be doing a talk at Rensselaer this Wednesday, April 11. Details are here. The event is free and open to the public.

(Photo above is from RPI's website and depicts a typical moment of RPI student enrichment.)

Westward Ho

I'll be in Austin this coming week for a bunch of events.

First, a Sun Tzu to Xbox talk at Monkeywrench Books on Sunday, September 17 at 8 pm

Address:
Monkeywrench Books
110 E. North Loop
Austin, Texas 78751
Map

Then, I'm Guest Artistic Director at this year's Cinematexas festival (September 20-24), an event I've long been a huge fan of. In addition to some great offerings of 16mm filmmaking and video art I've organized, there' re a few video game related artist I've invited who'll be there with their work ---

Eddo Stern (of Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament and others) will premiere his Darkgame (Prototype) (pictured) which is a game with a audio-physical interface rather than an audio-visual one: your special helmet whacks you on the head to tell you where to go.

Paul Slocum and Lauren Gray of Treewave will perform, using Paul's array of modified Atari, Commodore 64, portable PC and dot-matrix printer to make their beautiful music.

And one of the elusive and pioneering Net Art duo Jodi will be on hand all the way from the Netherlands for an installation of their game mod piece Max Payne Cheats Only.
                                     

With Tom Moody at BookCourt: The Evidence

I've uploaded pictures and audio (!) from last Wednesday's talk with Tom Moody at BookCourt.

Photos: BookCourt event album

MP3: Ed Halter talks with Tom Moody about the book (57 mins)

Topics covered: Special Force, Under Ash, UnderSeige, the Institute for Creative Technologies America's Army, Doom, Super Columbine Massacre, kriegspiel

 

At the end of the discussion, you can hear questions from T. Whid of MTAA, Anthony Kaufman and Joe Weisenthal.

Bookcourt Tonite in Brooklyn

Hey! Come by the BookCourt event tonight!

Tom's already got the discussion going on his blog here and here.

#######

Wednesday, July 19th at 8:00 pm

Author Ed Halter discusses his book From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games with digital artist and art-blogger Tom Moody

At
BookCourt
163 Court Street
Brooklyn NY 11201

* map and directions

About Tom Moody
Tom Moody is an artist based in New York. His most recent shows were a solo exhibition at artMovingProjects in Brooklyn, and "The GIF Show" at Rx Gallery in San Francisco. His blog was recommended in the 2005 Art in America article "Art in the Blogosphere," and his writing on art and music has appeared in Artforum, Sculpture, Art Papers, and other publications.